Photograph: Women marching c. 1975

Source: Getty

Consciousness-Raising Groups and the Women’s Movement

In the 1970s, one of the most powerful tools of feminism came from speaking out loud the nature of oppression.
An admission card to one of Anne Laura Clarke's lectures

This Forgotten Female Orator Broke Boundaries for Women

At a time when respectable women rarely spoke to the public, Anne Laura Clarke was a star lecturer.
Anna Julia Cooper, 1892

Black Women Have Written History for over a Century

Barriers of racism and sexism slowed them down, but academia wasn't their only venue.
Members of the women's police service during World War I.

Was “Khaki Fever” a Moral Panic over Women’s Sexuality?

At the start of World War I, young working-class women swooned for men in uniform, leading middle-class women to form patrols to police public morals.
Actors Robert Stephens (1931 - 1995) as a cook and Mary Peach as waitress Monique during rehearsals for the play 'The Kitchen' by Arnold Wesker at the Royal Court Theatre in London, 27th June 1961.

In The Gay Cookbook, Domestic Bliss Was Queer

Chef Lou Rand Hogan whipped up well-seasoned wit and served a gay take on home life during the early-1960s craze for camp.
A woman typing on a typewriter

Ione Quinby, Chicago’s Underappreciated “Girl Reporter”

She started off as a "stunt" journalist and moved into covering stories about women and crime in the Roaring Twenties.
classroom with Two children Doing Arithmetic. The teacher is colored red.

Did Communists Really Infiltrate American Schools?

Fears that teachers were indoctrinating kids were rampant in the 1950s. But the reality was more complicated.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Drunkard%27s_Progress_-_Color.jpg

Tea Parties for Temperance!

Behind the Victorian movement to replace tippling alcohol with a very British ritual.
A sales assistant at the perfume counter of a department store, 1946

The Fight to Integrate Philadelphia’s Department Stores

Black women shopped at department store counters, but they weren't welcome to work where they spent their money.
Two pages from a baby book from the 1920s

The Long-Lost Ritual of Baby Books

Mothers used to documented their infant children's milestones—first steps, first smile—in specially made books. They're amazing historical documents.